In ancient Persia, an evil being that was created in the beginning of time called the Djinn was sealed inside a opal stone. The Djinn makes peoples wishes come true, but their wishes always turn out in the most horrible of ways. In present time a gemologist named Alexandra is examining the opal and awakes the Djinn that is trapped inside. The Djinn is set free and goes out to make people wish for things with the prize of their souls. But his real mission is to make the one who woke him, Alexandra, make three wishes in order for him to become completely free in order to conquer the earth.
Here we have a pretty cool horror movie that is not great but still makes for a good 90's flick. Think of Aladdin, the genie and the lamp, a lot darker but basically the same thing. Apparently before stories like Aladdin etc existed, there was only one real version, the legend of the Djinn. The Djinn was an evil spiritual creature that travelled between the worlds, created in the beginning of time along with the angels, and that would make ones wishes come true, but in a gruesome instead of a good way. The Djinn twists peoples wishes and can only do bad, and once it gets three wishes from the person who woke it, it will be set free and able to bring its legions to conquer the earth and destroy humanity.
Robert Englund plays some sort of collector that collects historical things and brings a statue to America. But when loading it off the docks it breaks, due to a guy controlling the lift while being intoxicated and the statue falls down (on Ted Raimi) and is destroyed. A worker finds a opal attached to the statue and steals to later sell it to a pawn-shop. The pawn-shop owner takes the opal to a place to get it valued, and leaves it there for an expert to examine it. The experts name is Alexandra, a gemologist who by mistake manages to awaken the Djinn who's trapped inside the opal. The Djinn is let out and starts causing chaos by making people wish for things that all turn out in a twisted way. Eventually he has to confront Alexandra to make her give her three wishes in order for him to be able to be free to conquer the world.
Once the Djinn is let out from the opal he takes the form of a human being portrayed by Andrew Divoff, and personally I think Divoff does an excellent job as the "human" Djinn. His voice adds a lot of character and feel to the evil genie, and he is most perfect for the part. We even get to see him in Wishmaster 2 but after that he's gone, too bad. I heard some people complain that they think the Djinn talked too much, I don't really think so, it still works but the humour doesn't. The Djinn is supposed to be extremely evil so with him making some jokes at times does not really suit the character. I also heard people complain about Divoff's performance in the role of the Djinn saying that he's bad, but let me tell you, he's great (no I'm not his agent).
Wishmaster is a movie that should of course not be taken too seriously. It's a fun ride and a pretty good horror flick, so just enjoy it for what it is. Of course it has its flaws but movies like these so often do, but as long as the flaws do not dominate they are just small problems fairly easy to ignore. Now this movie is filled with special effects and if you are on heavy drugs they all might look mighty fine. Other than that, half of them are good and half of them are totally laughable. I'm not a big fan of computer generated effects, it can work at times of course but I hate when they use it way too much (Hellooo Lord of the Rings!). I guess it's needed here, but when it comes to horror movies I prefer the old school special effects and make-up. Although, the Djinn looks really cool and I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley at night.
The are some really cheap scares early on in the movie that couldn't be less scary, only thing is that they come pretty unexpectedly, but they're more irritating than fun. Other than that there are no scares but it's still entertaining to watch and you can't really expect a movie like this to be scary can you? We actually get treated to some fine gore and cool splatter effects, so it gets some credit for that. The acting is of course nothing special, but works for this type of flick.
Wishmaster is definitely a pretty entertaining horror movie. It might have a lot of flaws and things that are not so great in it. It might also be too predictable and feature some lame dialogue. But you're not watching a movie like this to become smarter, it's just supposed to be entertaining and fun, and that it manages to be.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Wes Craven's Wishmaster
MOVIE YEAR: 1997
DIRECTOR: Robert Kurtzman
WRITING CREDITS: Peter Atkins
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Andrew Divoff, Tammy Lauren, Robert Englund
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 90 min
RATING: 5/10
Wishmaster Website/IMDB Click here
Wishmaster Trailer Click here
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